Snow blowers have been used for years by home owners and others to remove snow from driveways, sidewalks and areas around their homes. Generally a snow blower consists of a snow caster having blades which move the snow and a drive unit including wheels and a power source such as an engine, to power the snow caster. The drive unit may be a wheeled cart or a lawn or garden tractor.
A snow caster generally has an auger to drive snow toward a fan unit that propels the snow up a chute and to one side of the snow caster. Snow casters come in two forms, single stage snow casters and a two stage snow casters. In the single stage snow caster, the fan unit is usually integral with the auger blades. However, single stage snow casters have a particular disadvantage. Because the fan unit and auger blades are mounted on the same drive shaft, they rotate together at the same speed. When penetrating deep snow, the auger blades move more snow toward the fan unit than it is capable of propelling through the chute at any given time. This reduces the efficiency of the single stage snow caster and limits the speed of snow clearing as well as the distance that the snow is thrown from the chute.
The two stage snow caster was developed to solve these deficiencies in the single stage snow caster. In this arrangement the fan unit or second stage is separately powered at a higher rotational speed. By rotating at a higher speed the fan unit is able to keep up with the snow moved by the auger, even in deep snow. Because it is separately powered by another drive arrangement, the fan unit is mounted behind and transversely with respect to the auger.
However, the two stage snow caster has its own deficiencies. The transversely mounted second stage makes the snow caster assembly longer from front to back and the snow caster must be mounted further in front of a garden or lawn tractor. This mounting moves the center of gravity of the tractor much further forward reducing the traction of the tractor rear wheels. This is particularly detrimental with small lawn and garden tractors.
In a two stage snow caster, the snow is first moved longitudinally by the auger blades, then transversely into the second stage and finally vertically out of the snow caster. This is opposed to the single stage arrangement of moving longitudinally and then vertically. This multitude of direction changes effects the efficiency of the two stage snow caster and is particularly a problem when items such as sticks are accidentally encountered by the snow caster and become lodged somewhere in the second stage. Because the second stge is mounted behind the augers, it is difficult to remove sticks and similar objects. With both types of snow casters it is important to provide effective support for the augers.
Accordingly, it is desirable to produce a snow caster having the size and operation benefits of a single stage snow caster while maintaining the operational efficiency of a two stage snow caster. Such a snow caster should also provide effective support for the augers. The snow caster of the present invention meets these desires.